DPWH: Meralco cut power to pump station during ‘Frank’

The Department of Public Works and Highways said yesterday that its pumping station in Navotas failed to drain floodwaters during typhoon “Frank” after the Manila Electric Co. cut the flood control facility’s power supply until the DPWH settled the station’s P50,000 bill.

“We had no electricity during the typhoon but the next day we were able to operate using our diesel-powered generator,” engineer Macariola Bartolo, Camanava flood control project director, told The STAR.

Asked why they did not immediately use the generator at the height of the storm, which inundated large parts of Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas and Valenzuela, Bartolo said they were unable to borrow a generator at that time.

Navotas City Mayor Toby Tiangco criticized the DPWH for saying that they operated their Navotas pumping station during the typhoon.

Gilvis Indanan, one of the DPWH’s engineers manning the pumping station and floodgate, said last week that the facility operated during the typhoon but garbage that clogged the Spine creek, which leads to the station, hampered the operation of the flood control machinery.

Tiangco belied the DPWH claim, saying that the pump did not operate during the typhoon “because it was either in need of repair or the batteries had been discharged,” and not because of the accumulated garbage at the creek.

The creek was cleared of garbage and silt last Friday on Tiangco’s orders.

Spine creek serves as a catch basin of floodwaters and garbage coming from Malabon and Caloocan.

Bartolo said yesterday the flood control project will be finished by September next year. – Pete Laude